So is it actually 80% of NYCPHS graduates that can't make CUNY-spec reading muster, or 80% of those "in a special remedial program at the Borough of Manhattan Community College [that] couldn't make the grade." If it is 80% of the aggregate, then why bring up the special program in the first place?

I mean, it is sad to think that a HS graduate couldn't read at a college level, but the headline makes it sound like "80% illiteracy" which no one that has ever observed teenagers on the internet would... doubt, actually.

They are all going to be on some kind of government subsidized disability or unemployment anyway. You just watch daytime court tv for those lawyers. That is really all you need to know in Imerrika these days anyhow. The lawyer will read you the list of symptoms from webmd to fill out on your form with the in house doc. The rest of us can just keep on rabbiting away...I forgot the other option which is to cross streets with your headphones on until some schmuck has the gall to hit you. Basically any kind of tort will do. Cash it all in at JG Wentworth and marry your highschool sweetslut and take "cur" of her kids until she leaves and takes half so ya blow the rest on bath salts on the way to Maury.

Officials told CBS 2′s Kramer that nearly 80 percent of those who graduate from city high schools arrived at City University's community college system without having mastered the skills to do college-level work.

its 80% of a certain subset of students that go to colleges where all you need to get in is a pulse (not even an SAT score or Regents diploma, a score of 50 on the PSAT will do). and its not that they can't read, that figure also includes math (that's probably a huge portion of that). and its that they can't perform at a college level, not that they can't do it at all.

I'm not one for censorship, but i don't think printing headlines that are pretty much outright lies is right either. factoryconnection is exactly right in his reading of the article, which doesn't say what the headline says at all.

My husband's father's wife came to our house for Christmas, as she generally has been doing for a couple years now. She's a public school counselor for troubled high schools and spends weekends in Juvie with the kids, so she sees a bunch of stuff.

Now, this last Christmas she and her husband went on this half hour long rant about how every homeschool kid they have ever seen has been behind in academics and socially retarded. Just on and on (I am in charge of schooling our kids, and I can go into great detail about which curriculums we use, which charter schools we have been a part of, and which social activities we participate in. I have a BA and have published a book, and am working on a couple more, as has my husband. We're not messing around). I don't really care what these two think: they have their lives, and we see them on birthdays sometimes (we never invited them to Christmas, they just told us they were coming one year).

And then I see stories like this, and I wonder what on earth she was smoking. Sure, there are some homeschoolers who go off into religious bunny trails, but most of the families I know still have to take the STAR tests and we're all kickin ass and taking names.

Just venting. Hate that woman./seriously...in *my house* with *my family* at *Christmas*

factoryconnection:So is it actually 80% of NYCPHS graduates that can't make CUNY-spec reading muster, or 80% of those "in a special remedial program at the Borough of Manhattan Community College [that] couldn't make the grade." If it is 80% of the aggregate, then why bring up the special program in the first place?

I mean, it is sad to think that a HS graduate couldn't read at a college level, but the headline makes it sound like "80% illiteracy" which no one that has ever observed teenagers on the internet would... doubt, actually.

It's also pointless without knowing (a) what percentage of NYCPHS grads wind up at CUNY community colleges and (b) how that percentage of students needing remedial work compares with other community colleges in other parts of the country.

/then again NYC is the world//I read that on the internet once///or maybe every day

kimmygibblershomework:They are all going to be on some kind of government subsidized disability or unemployment anyway. You just watch daytime court tv for those lawyers. That is really all you need to know in Imerrika these days anyhow. The lawyer will read you the list of symptoms from webmd to fill out on your form with the in house doc. The rest of us can just keep on rabbiting away...I forgot the other option which is to cross streets with your headphones on until some schmuck has the gall to hit you. Basically any kind of tort will do. Cash it all in at JG Wentworth and marry your highschool sweetslut and take "cur" of her kids until she leaves and takes half so ya blow the rest on bath salts on the way to Maury.

I was going to post something similar, but you did it much more eloquently than I ever could have...

NightOwl2255:AgentBang: This is one of the primary reasons why I doubt we'll continue to raise our child here once she starts going to school. Unless I hit it big and can afford a public school.

NYC schools, damn you scary.

Just don't home school.

Hell no. As much as it would break my heart, I'd rather move then my wife and I trying to home-school. We like to think we're smart, but that's what teachers are for. My experience with teaching is el-zilcho, so I'm only good enough to help with homework.

It's really a cultural thing, and a part of a bigger problem. Because its seen as "free" and "obligatory", people of all classes and creeds are taking it for granted. For the rich, since its "free" it's too crappy for their snowflakes, so they'll spend $20k/semester to send then to Andover or something, write off that expense, complain that they still have to pay property taxes for schools their kids dont go to, and try to defund the crap out of it. For the elderly, yeah they went to those schools and got an education and were made the better for it, but now they have a fixed income, and "times are different"*, so they'll vote against every tax measure to sustain it. For the young and their parents, "them teachers" never treated them right and didn't see how amazing they were, and kept insisting they do homework and read and learn maths and stuff that's just stupid because you don't need to know that shiat if you work in the mill or hustle or whatever. Teachers just be all up in their faces and whatever, because I rent an apartment, so I don't have to pay for this... But if there's a snow day and I gotta call my aunt to watch the kids so I can get to my shift at the salon/temp agency/McD's, oh hell no.

Education is not free, or obligatory. It's a valuable investment in society and an opportunity for their members. This is where we build our community's foundations and our futures. If you want to fix our country, start looking at our schools. The more people with a proper education we have, the better things will work across the board. When we get around to remembering that, maybe this will be fixed.

*I've learned that this is a catch-all phrase old people use as an excuse to justify their hypocrisy: "Yeah, I was always against war, but things have changed." "Yeah, I worked in a Union, retired at 55 and I'm living on a pension, but things have changed and everyone else who wants one is lazy." "I supported equal rights, but things have changed and..."

PumpkinCake:My husband's father's wife came to our house for Christmas, as she generally has been doing for a couple years now. She's a public school counselor for troubled high schools and spends weekends in Juvie with the kids, so she sees a bunch of stuff.

Now, this last Christmas she and her husband went on this half hour long rant about how every homeschool kid they have ever seen has been behind in academics and socially retarded. Just on and on (I am in charge of schooling our kids, and I can go into great detail about which curriculums we use, which charter schools we have been a part of, and which social activities we participate in. I have a BA and have published a book, and am working on a couple more, as has my husband. We're not messing around). I don't really care what these two think: they have their lives, and we see them on birthdays sometimes (we never invited them to Christmas, they just told us they were coming one year).

And then I see stories like this, and I wonder what on earth she was smoking. Sure, there are some homeschoolers who go off into religious bunny trails, but most of the families I know still have to take the STAR tests and we're all kickin ass and taking names.

Just venting. Hate that woman./seriously...in *my house* with *my family* at *Christmas*

THIS--I agree with everything you wrote. Some home schoolers are religious weirdos, but my kids were taught by my wife, and then went to a good public high school. They're both head and shoulders ahead of their friends--honors classes with As for both of them. And this in a school considered the third-best in the state. I weep for America's future hearing about the kids going through the 127th-best school my brother teaches in. He had to re-teach reading a ruler to 7th-graders. Most of them couldn't find the quarter-inch mark.

/98% of the teachers do their best-->society is killing parental responsibility.

mahuika:mentula: this is absolute, 100% pure rubbish. the ones entering CUNY community colleges need remedial help. the ones entering, say, ivy league schools, not so much.

part of the endless rightwing/media narrative bashing teachers in general and public education in particular.

full disclosure: i teach in a private school

And it's remedial help in reading, writing, or math. Hell, I probably need remedial help in math and I went to a Seven Sisters college.

Yep. I have a Bachelor's degree from a good school and just for giggles I took the on-line placement tests for our local community college (to be fair, our community colleges are excellent and are part of the SUNY system, so it's not the idiots applying) I tested out on the English portion, but needed the remedial math class. Yes, those skills do fall out of your head from lack of use. I know that I once knew them, and they're right there like the name on the tip of your tongue. I just can no longer access them.

PumpkinCake:My husband's father's wife came to our house for Christmas, as she generally has been doing for a couple years now. She's a public school counselor for troubled high schools and spends weekends in Juvie with the kids, so she sees a bunch of stuff.

Now, this last Christmas she and her husband went on this half hour long rant about how every homeschool kid they have ever seen has been behind in academics and socially retarded. Just on and on (I am in charge of schooling our kids, and I can go into great detail about which curriculums we use, which charter schools we have been a part of, and which social activities we participate in. I have a BA and have published a book, and am working on a couple more, as has my husband. We're not messing around). I don't really care what these two think: they have their lives, and we see them on birthdays sometimes (we never invited them to Christmas, they just told us they were coming one year).

And then I see stories like this, and I wonder what on earth she was smoking. Sure, there are some homeschoolers who go off into religious bunny trails, but most of the families I know still have to take the STAR tests and we're all kickin ass and taking names.

Just venting. Hate that woman./seriously...in *my house* with *my family* at *Christmas*

I know! Seriously pisses me off when people berate homeschooling!

I see that you went the "self-study" approach to your education, which is great and will probably work for you. But as someone who has a Harvard PhD in developmental studies, I feel as though I taught my children better than any formal school every could have - private, charter, public, you name it. I don't believe in the STAR test model, but I'm sure my children would set the bar if I offered it to them as an enrichment exercise.

My DS Ricky is an accomplished violinist whom I'm sending to Greece in the summer to study the cultural effects of economic austerity measures. He is a wonderful boy, though neighborhood kids still pick on him, accusing him of the silliest things, like masturbating his penis to the passing school bus. Kids are just absurd.

My DD Rebbecca just started menstruating again, so we're all very proud of her and her weight gains. She made the choice to stop eating and take all of her nutrition from staring at the sun - a silly phase for a twenty-three year old! She's working hard on becoming an unlicensed neurosurgeon so she can repair the brains of third world children. She seems to take great delight in collecting roadkill at night and performing her experiments on them. Success story? I'd say (twinkle in my eye).

My youngest, Richie, is twenty-four months and already has the vocabulary of a grown man. He told me this morning that he wanted to be an anesthesiologist. I told him to aim higher than the simple medical sciences! He loves hiding under the bed, though we have to drag him out every so often so he doesn't drink his urine. More silly kid behavior!

All in all, we're the perfect family. I hope that you and I, being geniuses, can bring our families together and form some sort of super group of singing, brain repairing, clean freaks who show the world that we're better than everyone else! And don't worry - we'll tutor your little darlings up so they won't feel inadequate. And you too!

Please contact me so we can schedule a home science fair or inter-capta geography rodeo with group massage.

PumpkinCake:NightOwl2255: AgentBang: This is one of the primary reasons why I doubt we'll continue to raise our child here once she starts going to school. Unless I hit it big and can afford a public school.

NYC schools, damn you scary.

Just don't home school.

You need to homeschool.

AgentBang:NightOwl2255: AgentBang: This is one of the primary reasons why I doubt we'll continue to raise our child here once she starts going to school. Unless I hit it big and can afford a public school.

NYC schools, damn you scary.

Just don't home school.

Hell no. As much as it would break my heart, I'd rather move then my wife and I trying to home-school. We like to think we're smart, but that's what teachers are for. My experience with teaching is el-zilcho, so I'm only good enough to help with homework.

Looks like my "joke" fell flat. I have nothing against homeschooling. Every home-schooled child I know is doing very well, if not better, then non-home-schooled kids.I was tying to make a small joke about this line "Unless I hit it big and can afford a public school." Which I assumed was a mistake and intended to say private, not public, school.

PumpkinCake:Sure, there are some homeschoolers who go off into religious bunny trails, but most of the families I know still have to take the STAR tests and we're all kickin ass and taking names.

I judge at the regional and state levels for the International Science and Engineering Fair. I also select recipients special awards at the state level for the Air Force and NASA. I'm also involved in The National Science Olympiad Committee. I see the best of the best science and math minds from middle through high school.

In my experience home schoolers do well but are not far and away more successful than their public or private school peers. Magnet school students tend to out perform home schoolers but not by as much as you'd expect.

The commondenominator among successful students in my experience has been parental involvement. Traditional (non-magnet) public school students compete just as well as home schoolers, public magnet, secular private, religious private, charter, early college, etc. etc. with similar levels of parental involvement.

Home schooling is nice but it's another form of parent involvement, it's not magic. Public school parents that make homework a priority and spend weekends taking their kids to science museums, zoos, etc. see similar results.

PumpkinCake:My husband's father's wife came to our house for Christmas, as she generally has been doing for a couple years now. She's a public school counselor for troubled high schools and spends weekends in Juvie with the kids, so she sees a bunch of stuff.

Now, this last Christmas she and her husband went on this half hour long rant about how every homeschool kid they have ever seen has been behind in academics and socially retarded. Just on and on (I am in charge of schooling our kids, and I can go into great detail about which curriculums we use, which charter schools we have been a part of, and which social activities we participate in. I have a BA and have published a book, and am working on a couple more, as has my husband. We're not messing around). I don't really care what these two think: they have their lives, and we see them on birthdays sometimes (we never invited them to Christmas, they just told us they were coming one year).

And then I see stories like this, and I wonder what on earth she was smoking. Sure, there are some homeschoolers who go off into religious bunny trails, but most of the families I know still have to take the STAR tests and we're all kickin ass and taking names.

Just venting. Hate that woman./seriously...in *my house* with *my family* at *Christmas*

Unless you have a BA major in every subject you are not qualified to teach your kids in every subject.